The PSAS team planned to have their LV2.3
airframe updates ready for BALLS this year, but RL interfered and they
weren't ready to go on time. A quick bit of rescheduling and we
decided to fly over the weekend of the 16-17 of October.

Tsolo and family welcomed us warmly as we arrived on Saturday
afternoon after driving over from Portland. They've got a new puppy
who is also cute and friendly.

We managed to get the launch tower and flight operations set up
before dark, cooked dinner and spent the evening prepping the
airframe. It was cold overnight, but the light cloud cover that had
been there when we arrived was nearly gone by morning. I called in to
open the waiver and was asked to hold until noon, which suited us just
fine.

The rocket finally made it onto the rail around 1:30 and we managed to
convince the launch controller to actually light the motor at 2:44:39
(according to the GPS data). Flying on a
CTI N2850 blue-streak,
LV2.3 hit about 380m/s and reached 4851m.

This was the first flight with the new fin system, you can see how that
works in the video here:

The roll control system worked as designed, executing a programmed
sequence of maneuvers during ascent. You can see the canard fins moving
back and forth in the video, controlling the roll of the airframe.

Yes, the fins really do spin separately from the airframe. You can see
how that was constructed here:

Live telemetry and stored flight data, consisting of GPS coordinates
along with barometry altimeter and accelerometer information, was
collected using the TeleMetrum
flight computer. The airframe was recovered about 800m downrange.